Scientists from Spain predict that the World’s population to stop growing in 2050

As per the Journal ’Simulation’, scientists from Spain, the world population will stop growing and stabilize by 2050. Scientists from the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM) and the CEU-San Pablo University, both from Spain developed a Mathematical model to confirm this.

This is in conformity with the UN report on world population in 2100 which states that the world population in 2100 will be within a range between 15.8 billion people (high fertility variant) – 6.2 billion (low fertility variant). Now, the figure of low fertility variant by UN is even below current population of 7 billion.

The model propounded by the Scientists from Spain confirms to the lower estimate from UN i.e. by 2100 world population will come to a standstill and even slightly drop.

How was the study conducted ?

Scientists from Spain used population prospects between 1950 and 2100 provided by the UN to conduct the study

They considered Earth as a closed and finite system where the migration of people within the system has no impact and where the fundamental principle of the conservation of mass and energy is fulfilled.

The study was started with a situation where both the birth rate and mortality rate were high, with slow growth favouring the former.

As a result of betterment and advances in healthcare there is an increased life expectancy and thus, the mortality rate fell sharply in the 2nd half of the 20th century and it appeared that the population would grow a lot.

Nevertheless, the past 30 years have seen a sharp drop in the number of children being born worldwide.

The model’s S-shaped sigmoid curve reflects this situation with an inflection point in the mid-1980s when the speed at which the population is growing starts to slow down until it stabilises around 2050.